Activity

Activity

Those who don't know I run what used to be a gaming community website/group called zombies love bacon, we were 150 members mainly on PC & PS3 with some 360. We were mainly casual gamers playing Call of duty, Battlefield, Minecraft, GTA, League of Legends, Garry’s Mod, Destiny and many more. We also got involved with some Esports with participating in competitive LANs playing Call of duty and some online tournaments as well – IT WAS AWESOME!

The Community game with a website, Facebook, twitter, YouTube, google plus, twitch & Steam community. The website had a private forum and was the means of joining the community (actually quite similar to the RT website). We also have Stickers, T-shirts, Hats & other merch for sale. We ran community nights like “GTA night”, “Call of duty custom match night” and my favourite “Rent a game Monday” – Where we would all get a cheap game or rent a game and try it every Monday (PlayStation plus games were awesome for this) it also helps people try new things and share their favourites.

As a Bonus to all the game playing and fun having I would record (and learn to record better) and make Let’s Plays that we would all watch and laugh and share with our friends. The popularity would grow people invite their friends and we would get invited to Charity LANS or ask to help people trying to record games with issues. I personally enjoyed the Charity LANs/Streams and was always happy to help get people set up with a recording system, editing etc.

Then 2 things happened.

The console generation changed… No longer could we all just bring a 360 to the LAN and play together because some had PS4 or XBONE or still on 360 and things got messy, to run a LAN we would need to supplier our own hardware because everyone didn’t have the one console (quiet PC master race we know this is where you shine) as a community those who upgraded early did and left those who couldn’t behind but the games weren’t the same it was hard to get everyone in the one space to play a game. Ps3 was great because there was a huge back catalog of cheap games to make letsplays with but with the ps4 everything was new and a lot of things (call of duty) just wasn’t as fun as it used to be – But maybe that has more to do with the second thing that happened.

We got old. When we started we were all Australians / New Zealanders aged 15 – 25 and now it’s more like 20-30…. Getting old sucks – it means more work and less time for fun and Girlfriends or worse wife & kids. The 150 strong turned into 50 people on PS4 & PC with a lot of people just not gaming anymore because they are being an adult instead. Those who are still together gaming, having jobs, kids, girlfriends etc. meaning we can game for a bit but not a lot and not all the time also… it’s harder to spend that money on new games etc.

THE SOLUTION (or so I thought) We ditch the community, Less LANs, Less Events and Less New games. More Gaming, Streaming, Recording (for more videos & Better merch for everyday wear. This is great but todays gaming is spread out over MORE GAMES coming out more often. So the few of us who play that same shooter (used to be Call of duty / Battlefield now Overwatch, battlefront, destiny & Titanfall) will get together when possible play and record and maybe make a video to share but rarely do the planets align and we get more than 4 people on at once to make a real go of it and with the growth of LFG sites and everyone trying to be next Youtube celebrity rarely do we get people wanting to join our community.

So I feel the “community” Side of ZombieLoveBacon is dead but there is still hope for the Brand and Channel. I know how to edit and record 1080p with party chat and voices etc. all mixed together, so I can make videos with ease – all I need is talent (I still have some people) and Ideas. Videos I’ve made lately don’t perform at all and therefor people who are in the videos don’t really want to participate in future.

So the struggle is real, I’m not sure what to do with the skills I have and I would love to make making videos about gaming that people enjoy – I don’t want Youtube fame just Videos people watch and want to watch. I constantly watch RT, AH, FS & CC videos here on the website and think how awesome it would be to participate in these kind of videos. Never would I had imagined getting to RT levels of community but it would have been nice to get a core group of members / fans together to make some magic.

I don’t know what I’m going to do / Change next but I will keep you posted.